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{{Short description|Emblem of a group of people}} 
{{Other uses}}
[[File:Kwakiutl1.jpg|thumb|A [[totem pole]] in [[Ottawa]], [[Ontario]], Canada]]
{{Anthropology of religion|Basic}}
A '''totem''' (from {{langx|oj|ᑑᑌᒼ}} or {{lang|oj|ᑑᑌᒻ}} '[[doodem]]') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of [[people]], such as a [[family]], [[clan]], [[lineage (anthropology)|lineage]], or [[tribe]], such as in the [[Anishinaabe clan system]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=totemism {{!}} religion {{!}} Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/totemism-religion|access-date=2021-11-24|website=www.britannica.com|language=en}}</ref>

While the word ''totem'' itself is an [[anglicisation]] of the Ojibwe term (and both the word and beliefs associated with it are part of the [[Ojibwe language]] and [[Ojibwe|culture]]), belief in [[Tutelary deity|tutelary spirits and deities]] is not limited to the Ojibwe people. Similar concepts, under differing names and with variations in beliefs and practices, may be found in a number of cultures worldwide. The term has also been adopted, and at times redefined, by anthropologists and philosophers of different cultures.

Contemporary [[Neoshamanism|neoshamanic]], [[New Age]], and [[mythopoetic men's movement]]s not otherwise involved in the practice of a traditional, tribal religion have been known to use "totem" terminology for the personal identification with a tutelary spirit or [[spirit guide]].

==Ojibwe ''doodemen''==
{{main|Anishinaabe clan system}}
The Anishinaabe peoples are divided into a number of {{Lang|oj|doodeman}} (in [[Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics|syllabics]]: {{lang|oj|ᑑᑌᒪᐣ|}} or {{lang|oj|ᑑᑌᒪᓐ}}), or clans, (singular: {{Lang|oj|doodem}}) named mainly for animal totems (or {{Lang|oj|doodem}}, as an [[Ojibwe]] person would say this word).<ref>WiLLMoTT, C. (2016). Anishinaabe Doodem Pictographs: narrative inscriptions and identities. ''Together We Survive: Ethnographic Intuitions, Friendships, and Conversations.''</ref> In [[Ojibwe language|Anishinaabemowin]], {{lang|oj|ᐅᑌᐦ}} {{Lang|oj|ode'}} means heart. {{Lang|oj|Doodem}} or clan literally would translate as 'the expression of, or having to do with one's heart', with {{Lang|oj|doodem}} referring to the extended family. In the Anishinaabe oral tradition, in prehistory the Anishinaabe were living along the coast of the [[Atlantic Ocean]] when the great {{Lang|oj|Miigis}} beings appeared from the sea. These beings taught the [[Midewiwin|Mide way of life]] to the ''[[Wabanaki Confederacy|Waabanakiing]]'' peoples. Six of the seven great {{Lang|oj|Miigis}} beings that remained to teach established the {{Lang|oj|odoodeman}} for the peoples in the east. The five original Anishinaabe totems were {{Lang|oj|Wawaazisii}} ([[Brown bullhead|bullhead]]), {{Lang|oj|Baswenaazhi}} (echo-maker, i.e., [[Crane (bird)|crane]]), {{Lang|oj|Aan'aawenh}} ([[Northern pintail|pintail]] duck), {{Lang|oj|Nooke}} (tender, i.e., [[bear]]) and {{Lang|oj|Moozwaanowe}} ("little" [[moose]]-tail).<ref>Bohaker, H. (2010). Anishinaabe Toodaims: Contexts for politics, kinship, and identity in the Eastern Great Lakes. ''Gathering places: Aboriginal and fur trade histories.''</ref>

==Totem poles==
{{main|Totem pole}}
[[File:Auk Village Totem 458.jpg|thumb|upright|Tlingit totem pole in [[Juneau]], [[Alaska]].]]
The totem poles of the [[Pacific Northwest]]ern [[Indigenous peoples of North America]] are carved, [[monument]]al poles featuring many different designs (bears, birds, frogs, people, and various supernatural beings and aquatic creatures). They serve multiple purposes in the communities that make them. Similar to other forms of [[heraldry]], they may function as crests of families or chiefs, recount stories owned by those families or chiefs, or commemorate special occasions.<ref name=GarfieldForrest>{{cite book|author=Viola E. Garfield and Linn A. Forrest|year=1961|title=The Wolf and the Raven: Totem Poles of Southeastern Alaska|page=[https://archive.org/details/wolfraven00garf/page/1 1]|location=Seattle|publisher=[[University of Washington Press]]|isbn=978-0-295-73998-4|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/wolfraven00garf/page/1}}</ref><ref name=Barbeau>{{cite journal | author= Marius Barbeau| title =Totem Poles: According to Crests and Topics | journal = National Museum of Canada Bulletin | volume =119 | issue =1 | page =9 | publisher = Dept. of Resources and Development, National Museum of Canada | location = Ottawa | date =1950  | url = http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/barbeau/mbp0502e.shtml| access-date =24 November 2014}}</ref> These stories are known to be read from the bottom of the pole to the top.

==Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders==
{{See also|Australian Aboriginal kinship|Dreaming (Australian Aboriginal art)}}
[[File:Chief Tantaquidgeon Totem KevinPepin.jpg|thumb|Personal totem of [[Mohegan]] Chief Tantaquidgeon, commemorated on a plaque at [[Norwich, Connecticut]]]]{{Cleanup lang|section|date=October 2021}}
The spiritual, mutual relationships between [[Aboriginal Australians]], [[Torres Strait Islanders]], and the natural world are often described as totems.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.esc.nsw.gov.au/living-in/about/culture-and-heritage/heritage-studies/heritage-projects-2012/Aboriginal-Totems-in-the-Eurobodalla.pdf|title=Exploring ways of knowing, protecting, acknowledging Aboriginal totems across the Eurobodalla, Far South Coast, NSW: Final report|last=Donaldson|first=Susan Dale|date=2012|website=Eurobodalla Shire Council|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614094642/http://www.esc.nsw.gov.au/living-in/about/culture-and-heritage/heritage-studies/heritage-projects-2012/Aboriginal-Totems-in-the-Eurobodalla.pdf|archive-date=2018-06-14}}</ref> Many Indigenous groups object to using the imported [[Ojibwe language|Ojibwe]] term "totem" to describe a pre-existing and independent practice, although others use the term.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.lowitja.org.au/sites/default/files/docs/DP9-Aboriginal-Spirituality.pdf|title=Aboriginal Spirituality: Aboriginal Philosophy The Basis of Aboriginal Social and Emotional Wellbeing|last=Grieves|first=Vicki|date=2009|website=The Lowitja Institute|page=12}}</ref> The term "token" has replaced "totem" in some areas.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/nswcultureheritage/IndigenousKinshipNaturalWorld.htm|title=Indigenous kinship with the natural world in New South Wales|last1=Rose|first1=Deborah|last2=James|first2=Diana|date=2003|website=www.environment.nsw.gov.au|access-date=2019-01-14|last3=Watson|first3=Christine}}</ref>

In some cases, such as the [[Yuin#Totems|Yuin]] of coastal New South Wales, a person may have multiple totems of different types (personal, family or clan, gender, tribal and ceremonial).<ref name=":0" /> The {{Lang|nay|lakinyeri}} or clans of the [[Ngarrindjeri#Ngarrindjeri lakinyeri|Ngarrindjeri]] were each associated with one or two plant or animal totems, called {{Lang|nay|ngaitji}}.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:319345/AU0094_NativeTribes_SE_Australia.pdf|title=The native tribes of south-east Australia|last=Howitt|first=Alfred William|publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]]|year=1904}}</ref> Totems are sometimes attached to [[moiety (kinship)|moiety]] relations (such as in the case of Wangarr relationships for the [[Yolngu]]).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.dhimurru.com.au/yolngu-culture.html|title=Yolngu Culture|website=DHIMURRU Aboriginal corporation|language=en|access-date=2018-12-19}}</ref>

Torres Strait Islanders have ''auguds,'' typically translated as totems.<ref name=":1" /> An ''augud'' could be a ''kai augud'' ("chief totem") or ''mugina augud'' ("little totem").<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z7kHX6fRnSkC&q=auguds+torres+strait+islanders&pg=PA154|title=Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits: Volume 5, Sociology, Magic and Religion of the Western Islanders|last1=Haddon|first1=A. C.|last2=Rivers|first2=W. H. R.|last3=Seligmann|first3=C. G.|last4=Wilkin|first4=A.|date=2011-02-17|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521179898|pages=155–156|language=en}}</ref>

Early anthropologists sometimes attributed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander totemism to ignorance about procreation, with the entrance of an ancestral spirit individual (the "totem") into the woman believed to be the cause of pregnancy (rather than [[insemination]]). [[James George Frazer]] in ''Totemism and Exogamy'' wrote that Aboriginal people "have no idea of procreation as being directly associated with sexual intercourse, and firmly believe that children can be born without this taking place".<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Th_jlN06nPYC&q=Totemism+and+Exogamy+indigenous+people+procreation&pg=PA191|title=Totemism and Exogamy - A Treatise on Certain Early Forms of Superstition and Society|last=Frazer|first=James George|date=2011|publisher=SEVERUS Verlag|isbn=9783863471071|pages=191–192|language=en}}</ref> Frazer's thesis has been criticised by other anthropologists,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B040KquZAEIC&pg=PA21|title=A Place for Strangers: Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being|last=Swain|first=Tony|date=1993-08-09|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521446914|pages=36–39|language=en}}</ref> including [[Alfred Radcliffe-Brown]] in ''Nature'' in 1938.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/141263a0|title=Coming into being among the Australian Aborigines|last=Radcliffe-Brown|first=A. R.|date=1938-02-12|website=Nature|language=en|access-date=2019-01-07}}</ref>

==Anthropological perspectives==
[[File:Totem Park pole 1.jpg|thumb|upright=0.55|A [[totem pole]] in Thunderbird Park, [[Victoria, British Columbia]]]]
Early anthropologists and ethnologists like James George Frazer, [[Alfred Cort Haddon]], [[John Ferguson McLennan]] and [[W. H. R. Rivers]] identified totemism as a shared practice across indigenous groups in unconnected parts of the world, typically reflecting a stage of human development.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />

Scottish [[ethnologist]] [[John Ferguson McLennan]], following the vogue of 19th-century research, addressed totemism in a broad perspective in his study ''The Worship of Animals and Plants'' (1869, 1870).<ref name=MacLennan1>MacLennan, J., ''The worship of animals and plants'', [[Fortnightly Review]], vol. 6-7 (1869-1870)</ref><ref name="Wolfe1998">{{cite book|author=Patrick Wolfe|title=Settler Colonialism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZdhnThYIgGAC&pg=PA112|access-date=4 December 2012|date=22 December 1998|publisher=[[Continuum International Publishing Group]]|isbn=978-0-304-70340-1|pages=111–}}</ref> McLennan did not seek to explain the specific origin of the totemistic phenomenon but sought to indicate that all of the human race had, in [[ancient times]], gone through a totemistic stage.<ref name=MacLennan1/>

Another Scottish scholar, [[Andrew Lang]], early in the 20th century, advocated a [[Nominalism|nominalistic]] explanation of totemism, namely, that local groups or clans, in selecting a totemistic name from the realm of nature, were reacting to a need to be differentiated.<ref name=Lang>Andrew Lang A., ''Method in the Study of Totemism'' (1911)</ref> If the origin of the name was forgotten, Lang argued, there followed a mystical relationship between the object—from which the name was once derived—and the groups that bore these names. Through nature myths, animals and natural objects were considered as the relatives, patrons, or ancestors of the respective social units.<ref name=Lang/>

British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer published ''Totemism and Exogamy'' in 1910, a four-volume work based largely on his research among [[Indigenous Australians]] and [[Indigenous peoples of Oceania|Melanesians]], along with a compilation of the work of other writers in the field.<ref name=Frazer1>''Totemism and Exogamy. A Treatise on Certain Early Forms of Superstition and Society'' (1911-1915)</ref>

By 1910, the idea of totemism as having common properties across cultures was being challenged, with Russian American ethnologist [[Alexander Goldenweiser (anthropologist)|Alexander Goldenweiser]] subjecting totemistic phenomena to sharp criticism. Goldenweiser compared Indigenous Australians and [[First Nations in British Columbia]] to show that the supposedly shared qualities of totemism—exogamy, naming, descent from the totem, taboo, ceremony, reincarnation, guardian spirits and secret societies and art—were actually expressed very differently between Australia and British Columbia. He then expands his analysis to other groups to show that they share some of the customs associated with totemism, without having totems. He concludes by offering two general definitions of totemism, one of which is: "Totemism is the tendency of definite social units to become associated with objects and symbols of emotional value".<ref name=":3">Goldenweiser A., ''Totemism; An analytical study'', 1910</ref>

The founder of a French school of sociology, [[Émile Durkheim]], examined [[Totemism (Durkheim)|totemism]] from a [[sociological]] and theological point of view, attempting to discover a pure religion in very ancient forms and claimed to see the [[origin of religion]] in totemism.<ref>Durkheim E., ''Totémisme'' (1910)</ref> In addition, he argued that totemism also served as a form of collective worship, reinforcing social cohesion and solidarity.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Koto |first=Koray |date=2023-04-10 |title=What is Totemism? The Concept of Totem in Sociology |url=https://ulukayin.org/what-is-totemism-the-concept-of-totem-in-sociology/ |access-date=2023-04-10 |website=ULUKAYIN English |language=en-US}}</ref>

The leading representative of British social anthropology, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, took a totally different view of totemism. Like [[Franz Boas]], he was skeptical that totemism could be described in any unified way. In this he opposed the other pioneer of social anthropology in England, [[Bronisław Malinowski]], who wanted to confirm the unity of totemism in some way and approached the matter more from a biological and psychological point of view than from an ethnological one. According to Malinowski, totemism was not a cultural phenomenon, but rather the result of trying to satisfy basic human needs within the natural world. As far as Radcliffe-Brown was concerned, totemism was composed of elements that were taken from different areas and institutions, and what they have in common is a general tendency to characterize segments of the community through a connection with a portion of nature. In opposition to Durkheim's theory of sacralization, Radcliffe-Brown took the point of view that nature is introduced into the social order rather than secondary to it. At first, he shared with Malinowski the opinion that an animal becomes totemistic when it is “good to eat.” He later came to oppose the usefulness of this viewpoint, since many totems—such as crocodiles and flies—are dangerous and unpleasant.<ref name=Radcliffe-Brown1>Radcliffe-Brown A., ''Structure and Function in Primitive Society'', 1952</ref>

In 1938, the [[Structural functionalism|structural functionalist]] anthropologist [[A. P. Elkin]] wrote ''The Australian Aborigines: How to understand them.'' His typologies of totemism included eight "forms" and six "functions".<ref name=":2" />

The forms identified were:

* individual (a personal totem), 
* sex (one totem for each gender), 
* [[Moiety (kinship)|moiety]] (the "tribe" consists of two groups, each with a totem), 
* section (the "tribe" consists of four groups, each with a totem), 
* subsection (the "tribe" consists of eight groups, each with a totem),
* clan (a group with common descent share a totem or totems), 
* local (people living or born in a particular area share a totem) and 
* "multiple" (people across groups share a totem).

The functions identified were:

* social (totems regulate marriage, and often a person cannot eat the flesh of their totem), 
* cult (totems associated with a secret organization),
* conception (multiple meanings), 
* dream (the person appears as this totem in others' dreams),
* classificatory (the totem sorts people) and 
* assistant (the totem assists a healer or clever person).

The terms in Elkin's typologies see some use today, but Aboriginal customs are seen as more diverse than his typologies suggest.<ref name=":2" />

As a chief representative of modern [[structuralism]], French ethnologist [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], and his {{Lang|fr|Le Totémisme aujourd'hui}} ("Totemism Today" [1958])<ref name="L-S1">(Lévi-Strauss C., ''Le Totémisme aujourd'hui''(1958); english  trans.  as  ''Totemism'', by [[Rodney Needham]]. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963</ref> are often cited in the field.

In the 21st century, Australian anthropologists question the extent to which "totemism" can be generalized even across different Aboriginal Australian peoples, let alone to other cultures like the Ojibwe from whom the term was originally derived. Rose, James and Watson write that:

{{Quote|text=The term ‘totem’ has proved to be a blunt instrument. Far more subtlety is required, and again, there is regional variation on this issue.<ref name=":2" />|sign=|source=}}

==Literature==
Poets, and to a lesser extent fiction writers, often use anthropological concepts, including the anthropological understanding of totemism. For this reason, literary criticism often resorts to psychoanalytic, anthropological analyses.<ref name=Maryniak>Maryniak, Irena. Spirit of the Totem: Religion and Myth in Soviet Fiction, 1964-1988, MHRA, 1995</ref><ref>Berg, Henk de. Freud's Theory and Its Use in Literary and Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Camden House, 2004</ref><ref name="nik2013">{{cite book|author= Nikoletseas Michael M|title=The Iliad: The Male Totem|date=26 January 2013|isbn=978-1482069006}}</ref><ref>Nikoletseas, Michael. The Male Totem in Klepht Poetry: Parallels with the Iliad, 2014, ISBN 978-1500934729</ref><ref>Nikoletseas Michael M, The Male Totem Dream Fragments, 2020, ISBN 979-8667493426</ref>

==See also==
{{wiktionary}}
{{Columns-list|colwidth=30em|
* [[Anishinaabe clan system]]
* [[Aumakua]]
* [[Charge (heraldry)]]
* [[Devak]], a type of family totem in Maratha culture
* [[Fylgja]]
* [[Huabiao]]
* [[Illyrian religion]]
* [[Jangseung]]
* [[Kóryos]]
* [[Little Arpad]]
* [[Moe anthropomorphism]]
* [[Religious symbolism in U.S. sports team names and mascots]]
* [[Tamga]], an abstract seal or device used by Eurasian nomadic peoples
* ''[[Totem and Taboo]]'' by [[Sigmund Freud]]
}}

* [[Shona people#Culture|Shona Culture - Mitupo]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Anthropology of religion]]
[[Category:Native American religion]]
[[Category:Nature and religion]]
[[Category:Sociology of religion]]
[[Category:Tutelary deities]]

[[tr:Ongun]]